USA > Washington > History of Washington; the rise and progress of an American state, Vol. III > Part 31
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Soon after camp was made at the end of the first day's march, a nearly exhausted messenger appeared from the
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west, with news that war had broken out, and that much of the country he was to traverse was filled with hostile enemies. This messenger brought letters from Mason, Simmons, Tilton and others, telling of Bolon's murder and Haller's defeat; that the volunteers had been called for, and that the company which Indian Agent Shaw had raised for his relief, after marching to Vancouver, had been refused arms and equipment by General Wool, and compelled to disband. He must therefore make a long winter journey through a hostile country, with only such defense against hostile attack as he could himself provide. His letters strongly urged him not to attempt this enterprise, but to return by way of the Missouri and Panama, as Wool had suggested.
But the governor was in no humor for such advice. The journey down the Missouri would not be without its dangers, since the way lay for hundreds of miles through the country of the warlike Sioux tribes, against whom General Harney was making a campaign, which, so far as he knew, was not yet concluded. The return by the direct route, if it could be made, would have many advantages over the other. Much time would be saved and the tribes not yet at war could be visited, and perhaps persuaded to remain at peace. To appear among these suddenly, and in the depth of winter, when he would not be expected, would impress them favorably, and help to urge them to the decision he wished them to make. More than all he would arrive home months earlier than he could hope to do by the other route, and, by rousing the settlers and conducting a vigorous cam- paign, he might end the war in time to permit the settlers to return to their homes and plant the crops there would be so much need for during the coming year.
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His party consisted of only 25 men, and their animals were much exhausted by the hard service required of them in assembling the Blackfeet for council. There was need also for better arms and more ammunition, but, sending Doty back to Fort Benton for these, with instructions to rejoin the party at the earliest moment possible, the governor with only two companions pushed forward to the Bitter Root Valley to make arrangements for fresh animals and supplies. This he reached on November 4th, having covered a distance of 230 miles in a little more than four days, and four days later the train with fresh supplies overtook him.
Before reaching this valley, he had overtaken the Nez Perce chiefs, who had attended the Blackfoot council. They had already heard that war had broken out, but they declared they had no intention to take part in it. There were fourteen in this party, and among them was Looking Glass, who had made so much trouble at the Walla Walla council. These now expressed a desire to accompany the governor to the end of his journey, and share any danger to be encountered. They also wished him to visit their country, after the mountains were crossed, promising that a large force of their young men would accompany him to the Dalles, and protect him with their lives against any enemy.
On November 14th the party set forward again and crossed the Bitter Root Mountains on the 20th, in snow three feet deep. The Cœur d'Alene mission was reached on the 25th, where the Indians were greatly surprised to see them, as they had not believed it possible to cross the mountains so late in the season. Many disquieting rumors from the west had reached these people, and they were in doubt as to whether they ought to remain at peace or
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join the hostiles. Emissaries from the hostiles had already been among them, and some of their young men were much inclined to war, but after a long conference with the governor they promised to remain neutral.
Here it was learned that four men who had been sent to the Spokane country with goods to be used in the council with that tribe, had arrived there, and that a party of fifteen goldhunters who were returning from the Colvile were with them. The governor accordingly resolved to go to their relief, and at the same time hold the council he had intended to hold there earlier in the season, if the Indians could be induced to attend it.
Sending Craig with three of the Nez Perce chiefs to Lap- wai, to assemble the Nez Perces in council by the time he should arrive there, the governor and the remainder of his party now started for the Spokane country, where there was reason to expect the Indians were already in a hostile humor.
The Spokanes were even more surprised than the Cœur d'Alenes had been when the party arrived. A council was immediately called, to which Angus McDonald, the Hudson's Bay agent at Fort Colvile, and the Catholic missionaries in its neighborhood, were invited. On the day appointed, they arrived, and the Spokane, Colvile and Cœur d'Alene Indians were present in large numbers.
The two former tribes were extremely hostile at the outset. They said the war had been raised by the white people, and they wanted it stopped. They had not joined in it yet, but would make no promise not to do so. If the Indians now at war were driven into their country they would not answer for the consequences; probably many of the Spo- kanes would join them. But after a stormy council lasting
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several days they were entirely conciliated, and promised they would reject all overtures of the hostiles, and continue the firm friends of the whites.
Having successfully concluded his negotiations with these tribes the governor set off for the Nez Perce country, after adding the nineteen white men, who had been living in a blockhouse they had constructed for their defense, to his party, and by a forced march reached the Clearwater in four days. Here he found the whole Nez Perce nation assembled to meet him, and the council was promptly opened. The Indians were found to be loyal to the treaty they had made, and they offered to send 150 of their young men, if the governor wished them, to escort him through the Walla Walla Valley, which they supposed to be now filled with hostiles. But before the council was over news came that the Oregon volunteers, after four days of hard fighting, had completely routed the enemy, and driven them across the Snake River.
On the day after this council the governor started for the Walla Walla battleground, escorted by sixty-nine Nez Perce warriors, and reached it without encountering any hostiles. They had all been driven out of the country by the Oregon volunteers, who were still in their camp on the battlefield. But the country between the Blue Mountains and the Columbia was reported to be overrun with hostiles, supposed to number 1,000 to 1,200 warriors.
With the Oregon troops the governor found Indian Agent Shaw, who had come hither to meet him. There were also about twenty-five settlers remaining in the neighborhood, all the others having fled to the Dalles. These Shaw was directed to organize into a company, together with such members of the governor's party as could be left with him,
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to build a fort, and to maintain it at all hazards, in case the Oregon troops should be withdrawn. The Nez Perce warriors were disbanded and sent home.
Having completed these arrangements, the governor set out on New Year's day for Vancouver, accompanied only by his son, one white man and two Indians. The weather had been very cold for several days, and the river was frozen over, so that the trip, as far as the Dalles, was made on horseback. All the streams were crossed on the ice, until the Des Chutes was reached, which, although frozen on either side for a considerable width, was a raging torrent. The horses were forced into and across it with difficulty, but without accident. From the Dalles to Vancouver the party journeyed part of the way on horseback, part on foot and part in an open boat during a violent gale, but that destination was finally reached in safety.
Here the governor had hoped to find General Wool, but he had left only the day preceding for San Francisco. After conferring with Major Rains, who had been left in command at that point, and ascertaining something of the policy to be pursued by the regulars under Wool's orders, he hastened on to Olympia, arriving there on Saturday, January 19th. The legislature was in session, and the two houses sent a joint committee to invite him to address them, which he did on Monday afternoon. There had been no time to prepare a written message, and the address was purely extem- poraneous. He hurriedly reviewed the causes of the war, and the work done both by the regulars and volunteers since it began, noting, though not unduly emphasizing, the fact that the principal fighting had been done at Walla Walla by the Oregon volunteers, while the regular troops were in garrison. He had learned there that those in command of
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these troops contemplated no movement against the hostiles until May, but in his opinion active operations should begin at once. The weather east of the Cascades was not unfavor- able for military operations, nor was it likely to be so during the remainder of the winter. There was abundant fuel there for the camps, and grass for animals. The mountain passes were closed with snow, preventing the hostiles on one side of the mountains from going to the help of those on the other, or from escaping if attacked and closely pressed.
The time to begin and actively press a campaign against them was while these conditions prevailed. If delayed until summer he was convinced that it would be necessary to defer them until winter again, for when the snow melted they would find innumerable places of refuge in the moun- tains that were now closed to them, and besides it would be easy for them to procure game, fish and roots for their subsistence, where in winter it would be difficult.
There was another reason for pressing the contest at once and with vigor, and that was that the volunteers would be anxious to return to their homes, as the planting season approached, in order to provide food for their families. If the war should continue they must raise a crop during the summer, or be without food in the winter following, whether the war continued or not. By prompt and vigorous action, the hostiles west of the mountains could be so far reduced that it would be safe for most of the settlers to return to their homes by planting time, where by building block- houses they could defend themselves in case of attack, and attend to their ordinary affairs.
It has been charged by the careless, who have not taken the pains to ascertain what the facts are, but have accepted General Wool's statement that it had been reported to him
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while in Oregon, "that many citizens, with a due proportion of volunteers, and two newspapers, advocated the extermi- nation of the Indians," as applying to Stevens also; that he, in this speech, or elsewhere, declared his purpose or wish to exterminate them; but this is not the fact. The object of the war, as he plainly said, should be to enforce respect for the treaties already made, and to compel the surrender of all those who had committed wanton murder, for trial and punishment. Nothing less would secure a lasting peace and the safety of the settlements. To make new treaties or agreements, or to offer to treat with the hostiles while in arms, would only encourage them to renewed hostility. They must be taught that they could not wan- tonly break their engagements, or murder the settlers with impunity. Until this was done, and the authority of the government asserted and recognized, no peace that might be proclaimed could be lasting.
The governor had embodied these views, both as to the time and method of making the war, and the purpose of it, in a letter written to Wool from the Walla Walla camp under date of December 28th. In it he also gave that officer full information in regard to the results of Kelly's battle, the present temper of the tribes, as indicated in the councils he had recently held, or by information he had personally obtained, and also renewed the suggestions he had made in his letter of the preceding May, in regard to the disposi- tion of troops in the country now hostile. He courteously urged upon the old general's notice, the advantages of a winter campaign, and pointed out the means by which his forces could be regularly supplied at least expense. Gener- ally, he offered all the information which one military officer, who is familiar with the country in which a war is to be
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urged, and knows the number, temper and condition of the enemy, the advantages on which he will rely, and the obstacles he will need to overcome, will know to be valuable to another wholly without information of this kind.
This letter was not dispatched until after he had reached Olympia, and there, on January 29th, he added such further information as he had obtained about the attack on Seattle, and the progress of the war in general. In closing this second letter, which was really in the nature of a postscript, he frankly told Wool that he should report to the secretary of war the neglect with which he had been treated by him- self and others in authority. "It remains to be seen," he said, "whether the commissioner selected by the pres- ident to make treaties with the Indians in the inte- rior of the continent, is to be ignored and his safety left to chance."
As might have been expected this letter drew from Wool a sharp reply. The governor would find in due time, he said, that many of his suggestions had been anticipated. But in making them he should have recollected that the commanding general "had neither the resources of a terri- tory, nor the treasury of the United States at his command." Still he might reply that the war would be prosecuted with "vigor, promptness and efficiency," but also "without wasting unnecessarily, the means and resources at my disposal, by untimely and unproductive expeditions." With the aid of the force recently arrived, he thought he would be able to bring the war to an end within a few months, "provided the extermination of the Indians, which I do not approve of, is not determined on, and private war pre- vented, and the volunteers withdrawn from the Walla Walla country."
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The remainder of this rather long letter was devoted to a statement of the causes of complaint which he had to allege against the governor of Oregon, the settlers, and the volun- teers, for their treatment of the Indians. He evidently regarded them as the sole aggressors, and charged them with responsibility for every inexcusable act that had been committed by either side since the beginning of hostilities.
That censurable acts had been committed by individuals both among the settlers and volunteers was, unfortunately, not to be denied. The mutilation of the dead body of old Peo-peo-mox-mox was not to be defended, nor could the slaughter of a small band of peaceful Indians, mostly old men, women and children, which had taken place in southern Oregon, be excused. There had been wanton murders of Indians by white men, as well as of white men by Indians, in both territories, and horses and cattle had been stolen from Indians in the Walla Walla country, who were not hostile, while the Oregon volunteers remained there. But these were the acts of individuals, and were in no way sanctioned by the authorities, or by the great mass of settlers. Neither the governors of the territories, nor the officers of the volunteers could entirely repress the criminal element while the war was in progress, any more than they could prevent crime in time of peace. The camp-followers, who had harassed the settlers during their long journey across the plains, had not abandoned the country, or been driven out of it, before hostilities began. The disturbed conditions incident to war only encouraged these persons, undesirable in any community, to a freer indulgence of the inclinations and passions, which in a state of peace made them trouble- some enough, and in war, even though in the ranks, a source of annoyance and anxiety at all times except in actual
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battle. But General Wool charged the misdeeds of these renegades and outlaws to the account of the territorial authorities and the settlers, without discrimination, and as confidently as if he had supposed the frontiers ought to be inhabited only by highly cultivated people of one class and of equal accomplishments.
The governor returned no reply immediately to this sulky letter. In March Wool made another hasty journey to the Columbia, and for the first time visited the Sound. Hearing that he was at Fort Steilacoom, on the 15th, Stevens sent his adjutant-general to confer with him, bearing a letter in which he informed the general that he had called out a large force of volunteers and Indian auxiliaries, and stood ready to cooperate with the regular forces "in any plans you may think proper to adopt." But the general had left the fort when this messenger arrived, and returned to San Francisco by the survey steamer Active. His hurried visit to, and early departure from, a region where he was responsible for so much, and where it would seem to be necessary, or at least desirable, to procure complete information about many things of which he must then have been ignorant, indicated clearly that he had no wish to meet the man whom he had so recently left to make his way home through a thousand miles of hostile Indian country, without making the slightest effort, or permitting others to make any, to assist him.
Five days later, on March 20th, the governor made his reply to the general's letter from California. It was much longer than either of his former letters, and was vigorous in style, thorough in method, and merciless in its logic and conclusions. In it the course of the war was reviewed at length, and the conduct of it on the part of the regulars and the volunteers was contrasted with no credit to the
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former or their commander. Wool's charges against the territorial authorities and the settlers were reviewed, and one by one refuted or answered. It was denied that Peo- peo-mox-mox was entrapped by a flag of truce, or that he was unfairly slain. The governor had investigated the whole matter on the ground, and was satisfied, the testimony of friendly Indians showing that he had deserved death. He and others reprobated the indignities offered his person after his death. It was admitted that turbulent men among the volunteers had done some injury to Indians who were not hostile after the battle, but this would have been pre- vented had the regular forces been properly employed. The general was reminded that he was now sending rein- forcements to the territory-two companies of the 9th infantry recently arrived on the coast in response to his request-although only a short time previously he had refused the aid of volunteers, declaring they were unneces- sary.
He was also reminded that after sending these two com- panies, and saying that they ought to be sufficient, with the aid of the warship Massachusetts, recently arrived in the Sound, "to bring to terms two hundred Indian warriors," that he had permitted his subordinates to call upon the territorial authorities for two companies of volunteers, although knowing that they could not be furnished. He had also ignored the fact that Captain Keyes had asked for six additional companies, while Colonel Casey, who had arrived in command of the reinforcements, had already reported that eight companies should be permanently sta- tioned in the Sound country. Thus the testimony of his own acts was offered to prove that his plan for conducting the war was at fault.
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Nobody in the territory, so far as the governor knew, was in favor of exterminating the Indians. The territorial authorities certainly were not, and in proof of this he called attention to the fact that more than four thousand friendly Indians had been assembled in safe places on the west side of the Sound, and on the islands, where for five months past they had been watched over by agents, and cared for by the government, to prevent them from joining the hostiles. The good conduct of the settlers had strengthened the hands of the government in this work. He also pointed out that the Nez Perces, Spokanes and Cœur d'Alenes had not yet joined in the war, and the reason why they had not was because he himself had recently been among them, and secured their promise to remain neutral. But the Spokanes were being harassed by Kam-i-ah-kan and his malcontents, and were now asking that troops be sent to protect them. He had himself long ago recommended that this be done. Unless this request was heeded they might take the war path. To protect these and other tribes not yet hostile, a blow should be struck east of the Cascades before the close of May; if it were not struck the warriors already in arms would most likely be increased from a few hundred to two thousand. In that case, said the governor, "I warn you now, sir, that I, as governor of Washington, will cast upon you the whole responsibility of any difficulties that may arise in consequence, and that by my firm, steady and ener- getic course, and by my determination to cooperate with the regular service, whatever may be the provocation to the contrary, I will vindicate the justice of my course, and maintain my reputation as a faithful public servant."
This severe arraignment Wool did not answer. He directed his adjutant to return the letter to the writer, as not proper
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to be retained in the records of his office, and so ended the controversy as far as he was concerned. But the governor was not subdued by this rebuff, and thenceforth continued to write the major-general commanding whenever the public business seemed to require it.
This correspondence is interesting at the present day, chiefly as showing the differences which divided and confused the efforts required to subdue the hostiles and end the war. Had Stevens' policy been adopted, and followed with the vigor he wished to infuse into it, the war would have been ended within a few weeks. The hostiles would have been dispersed, the murderers punished, the treaties respected, and the authority of the government recognized. This policy would in the end have proved to be more humane than that which Wool persisted in following. War is at best a harsh and cruel business. It does not admit of any sentimental consideration for the enemy. "War is hell," said General Sherman, and he certainly had experience enough of it to entitle his opinion to respect. General Wool's mistaken policy undoubtedly prolonged the war for two years beyond the time when it should have been ended. Had he permitted it to be conducted with energy, as Wright or Casey would have conducted it if left to themselves, it would have been finished by a single campaign; the lives of several brave officers and soldiers would not have been needlessly sacrificed, as they were by Steptoe's repulse; eastern Washington might have been opened to settlement at least two years earlier than it was; the Spokanes and Cœur d'Alenes, who were not yet in- volved in the war, and who really wished to remain at peace, would not have been drawn into it, and many of the Indians whom Wright subsequently hanged,
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might have escaped the gallows, or at least have died in battle.
While this wordy war between the governor and the major-general commanding was going on, the former was preparing, with his accustomed vigor, to force the war to a conclusion. On the day after his address to the legislature was delivered, a proclamation was issued, calling for six new companies of volunteers to serve for six months. While these were organizing he made a trip down the Sound to inspect the Indian reservations, and secure such informa- tion as would be needed to prepare that part of the territory for defense. It was on this trip that he visited Seattle, just before the Klikitats attacked it. While on this trip he met and conferred with Patkanim, chief of the Snoqual- mies, who offered to serve against the hostiles with eighty of his warriors, and, while distrusting his sincerity, resolved to put it to the test, and leaving Agent Simmons with him to direct his movements, and make sure of his loyalty, he sent him by way of the Muckleshoot, to cooperate with the forces then watching Leschi on the Green River.
The attack on Seattle had evidently admonished the governor that the disaffection among the Indians was more general, and that the means of communication between the hostiles east and west of the mountains were better than he had supposed. The dangers of the situation were therefore greater than he had calculated, and more effective measures were required. He had already announced to the legis- lature that he intended to call for more volunteers, and that he would not place them under Wool's control by having them mustered into the service of the United States. Al- though willing to cooperate with the regulars in every active way, he would retain control of the forces raised, and direct
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